Need some help explaining the Iraq War and its causes to

[renie408]

my eleven year old daughter. We homeschool and our social studies are currently involved with American History from the Revolution to the Civil War. We just covered the Monroe Doctrine. I wanted to make a brief link between the Iraq War as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. In the process, I realized that my daughter really knows nothing about this war. She knows we are there and that it is bad, but that is about it. I also realized that while I believe a lot of things about the war and know many details, I don't have a cohesive timeline for the events that lead up to the war. When I think about it, to give any idea of why we are there and why things are so screwed up, I have to go back to the 1920's. But then this turns into a a REALLY big sidetrack. I can't decide how much to include or where to start.

Can anybody give me either some good links to fairly concise sites covering the war or do you have something at hand? She wants to go back to conventional school next year and we live in SC, so I want her to get a good, fact based knowledge of what has happened before she gets into a school where I KNOW the spin is going to be pro-Bush. My son's American History teacher told the class that some day we would thank god that George Bush had been our President at this time. I want to get ahead of that.

[babylonsister]

1. Here's a basic timeline to get you started:

http://thinkprogress.org/iraq-timeline